Her ships no longer needed them.

Thereupon, with a promptness which would be amusing if it did not have so serious a side for America, she proceeded to inveigh through all her organs of public opinion against the discarded and condemned policy of granting subsidies to ocean steamers.

Her course in effect is an exact repetition of that in regard to protection of manufactures, but as it is exhibited before a new generation, the inconsistency is not so readily apprehended nor so keenly appreciated as it should be on this side of the Atlantic.

Even now there is good reason for believing that many lines of English steamers, in their effort to seize the trade to the exclusion of rivals, are paid such extravagant rates for the carrying of letters as practically to amount to a bounty, thus confirming to the present day (1884) the fact that no nation has ever been so persistently and so jealously protective in her policy as England so long as the stimulus of protection is needed to give her the command of trade.

What is true of England is true in greater or less degree of all other European nations.
They have each in turn regulated the adoption of free-trade by the ratio of their progress towards the point where they could overcome competition.